This is a renewal proposal that seeks to continue a productive research program directed toward the laboratory preparation of biologically active substances. Organic compounds isolated from Nature serve as fertile ground for the development of new therapeutic agents and as inspiration for the development of new strategies, reactions, catalysts, and reagents that can be used in their assembly. Certain natural products such as pactamycin exhibit favorable biological activities for which more in-depth exploration would be desirable; however, limitations in extant synthetic methods (or biotechnologies) preclude the efficient and practical preparation of advanced intermediates in quantities that would be useful for SAR studies. The general goal of this research program is to use natural products as an inspiration for new reaction and new reagent development. Complex bioactive natural products like pactamycin and echinosporin present a series of interesting synthetic challenges; their structures suggest to us methodologies that do not currently exist but would be exceptionally useful in efficient syntheses of these targets. The specific goals of this research proposal are to (i) achieve a concise asymmetric synthesis of the complex natural product pactamycin via a unique diastereoselective desymmetrization strategy; (ii) develop new techniques for C-N bond formation at the a-position of azomethines, thereby enabling rapid assembly of diverse diamines; (iii) create new methods for the assembly of functionally dense di- and triamines through the strategic application of a congested Mannich addition; (iv) develop new polyfunctional reagents that will be applicable to the rapid construction of natural products like echinosporin, as well as a range of other useful chiral building blocks. Collectively the realization of these specific aims will advance the field of organic chemistry and be of use in biomedical endeavors by providing facile access to structures that were heretofore unknown or accessible only by virtue of methods that were inefficient and/or impractical.